"Of course, I want to sell this record - there's no point making it otherwise." -- George Michael

George J. Michael (born 1961) is an associate professor of political science and administration of justice at The University of Virginia's College at Wise. He studies right-wing extremism, including the convergence of militant Islam and the extreme right, and is the author of Confronting Right-Wing Extremism and Terrorism in the USA (2003), The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right (2006), Willis Carto and the American Far Right (2008), and Theology of Hate: A History of the World Church of the Creator (2009).

"Celebrity and secrets don't go together. The bastards will get you in the end.""Everything was going my way. I was happily marching into the history books. Then it all just fell apart.""I define my sexuality in terms of the people that I love.""I left school at 17 and was a star by the time I was 18 - in certain parts of the world anyway.""I spent years growing up being told what my sexuality was.""I think for most of us, our biggest frailties are sexual.""I think the media is a real demon.""I want to make a pop album - something more upbeat than my stuff was in the '90s.""I would advise any gay person that being out in the real sense can never happen too soon.""I'm not anti-American. I've lived with Kenny, a Texan, for six years.""I've never done anything so political before. I've spent years shouting my mouth off about serious issues over dinner tables but never really had the confidence to express my views in a song.""It's absolutely essential that we have the same safeguards that straight couples do. But I want more than a 50 percent chance of success. I don't want to emulate that.""It's important to me that I should be free to express myself.""My American gay audience have continued to dance and sing to the music I make in a way that straight Americans haven't. I am grateful to them for that.""The whole business is built on ego, vanity, self-satisfaction, and it's total crap to pretend it's not.""There's no comfort in the truth, pain is all you'll find.""With pop stars or film stars, we become the object of people's self-definition, as well as the object of sexual definition.""You'll never find peace of mind until you listen to your heart.""Your political system is actually too democratic. The fact that Americans vote on every bill and proposition can prolong bigotry indefinitely, especially where it is aimed at minority groups."

Michael has a B.S. from Widener University and an M.A. from Temple University. He obtained his Ph.D. in public policy from George Mason University in 2002, where he studied under Francis Fukuyama, with a thesis entitled "The U.S. Response to Domestic Right Wing Terrorism and Extremism: A Government and NGO Partnership."

Described by The Christian Science Monitor as a political extremism expert, he was awarded the University of Virginia's "Outstanding Research Award", awarded to a faculty member who "has contributed significantly to published research in his or her discipline".

Michael is a U.S. Air Force and Pennsylvania Air National Guard veteran, who has also worked for the U.S. Army as an operations research analyst in a civilian capacity.

In 2003, he authored Confronting Right-wing Extremism and Terrorism in the USA, which discussed domestic terrorists and the threats they pose to U.S. "homeland security."

Political Science Quarterly reviewed his 2006 The Enemy of My Enemy, writing:

George Michael's The Enemy of My Enemy explores the connections and possibilities for cooperation between a threat of substantial contemporary interest to policymakers, intelligence analysts, and political scientists...militant Islamic movements like the al Qaeda organization (AQO)--and one that is, in many respects, an incipient one, Western right-wing extremism. The book provides a good overview of the historical and intellectual wellsprings of these two movements, but ultimately does not provide a case that would justify alarm.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of The Weekly Standard also reviewed it, noting that it is from perfect, as at some points it has block quotes with very little analysis, and is too long, but that its value "can be found in its in-depth study of the on-again, off-again love affair between radical Islam and the extreme right."

His 2008 book Willis Carto and the American Far Right Michael explored how the founder of Liberty Lobby, Willis Carto, shaped the position of the far right on various issues including immigration, globalization, Holocaust denial, and the Middle East conflict.

Michael says that post-9/11, underground radio stations that traffic in conspiracy theories and incite violence in the U.S. are under greater scrutiny as law enforcement has been given more power to prosecute such speech. He also says the American Free Press newspaper is "the most important newspaper of the radical right." He has observed that extremist groups such as the Guardians of the Free Republicans, which suggested in 2010 that all 50 U.S. governors step down or face removal, most often show evidence of "both left-wing and right-wing elements in their worldview". In the same vein, he notes that: "Traditionally, critique of the IRS has come from the right, such as the Christian patriot movement, but [sovereign citizen] movements also invoke a lot of left-wing ideas like anti-capitalism that are consistent with the times and the downturn in the economy, where people may have property liens against them."

"A Continuum for Responding to the Extreme Right: A Comparison between the United States and Germany", George Michael and Michael Minkenberg, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 30, Issue 12, December 2007, pages 1109-23

"Michael Collins Piper: An American Far Right Emissary to the Islamic World", George Michael, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Volume 9, Issue 1, March 2008, pages 61—78

"Riots, disasters and racism: impending racial cataclysm and the extreme right in the United States", George Michael; D. J. Mulloy, Patterns of Prejudice, Volume 42, Issue 4 & 5, September 2008, pages 465-87

Lane and the Fourteen Words", George Michael, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Volume 10, Issue 1, March 2009, pages 43—61